At the start of September, New Yorkers started noticing the annual event that occurs at the same time as the start of school. Anyone walking on the East Side near Midtown would have undoubtedly noticed the already high security increase. While some might know why this occurs, most people are not aware that the annual UNGA meeting was about to begin. But the question remains: What is UNGA week, and why is it so important?

UNGA Week is an annual event (In this year’s case, the 78th annual event) in which world leaders come from across the world to try and discuss major topics as a majority of countries. Most countries will send their head of state, or minister of foreign affairs, which explains the increase in NYPD, Secret Service, and consular security.

However, this normally important event had some key takeaways this year. Between countries recently overthrown in the African coups, certain European presidents skipping the week, and Putin being unable to come, it seems like drama this year was extremely abundant. While a little drama is always expected from high level meetings like these, the amount of drama this year reminded me of my favorite quote from Robert Muchamore: “Politicians are a lot like five-year-olds. You know: one day they’re best friends and five minutes later they’re rolling around in the sandpit biting chunks out of each other.”

One of the main topics of the week, some hoped, would be various aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the meeting schedule was ridiculously full of meetings, leading to most leaders not conversing on the same subject as a group. Just the public list of meetings showed that most nations would have needed to send a dozen delegates just to attend and process the meetings, and there were definitely more private meetings that took priority, and press conferences by many world leaders.

While the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had decided not to attend this year’s UNGA, the Ukrainian one was very present. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in New York and spoke directly to the Security Council, advocating for the removal of the Russian veto power, saying that no advancements could be made by the UN for peace as it is blocked by the Russians and their veto power. He was also at other high-level meetings and we can predict that he has discussed more military and humanitarian aid from some NATO countries.

Putin was not the only world leader who was absent. In fact, the United States was the only nation in the Security Council’s permanent five nations. Russia and China rarely send their heads of state for this event, but there are still two eyebrow raising absences: Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron. 

Downing Street provided no proper reason for this absence, except for the fact that Sunak “had a busy schedule”, citing the G20 meetings earlier in September and the COP28 in Dubai as reasons. However, he is the first British prime-minister to snub UNGA in over a decade. Even Liz Truss, the prime minister who was outlasted by cabbage, made time to come to New York when necessary.

Sunak’s French counterpart has used the exact same excuse this year, as he had the same events, on top of visits by England’s newly crowned King Charles III and Pope Francis. Xi Jingping was already absent last year, and this year sent the Vice President to give a speech to the General Assembly.

These absences did have a silver lining, however. The lack of major countries being very vocal this year gave other countries the chance to have a bigger voice. Countries still under development were more than happy to have a bigger voice this year, as the 78th UNGA marks the halfway point on the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. The agenda was agreed upon in 2015 and was due to be completed by 2030. These goals are in part, a way to bring underdeveloped nations up to speed with their counterparts. 

Overall, we see major room for improvement when it comes to what should be one of the biggest diplomatic events of the year, and there is still hope to make next year’s UNGA week more useful in furthering universal goals and focusing on key topics, like the Russian Invasion.